(b Kansas City, MO, 25 Nov 1896; d New York, 30 Sept 1989). American composer and critic. He produced a highly original body of diverse music rooted in American speech rhythms and hymnbook harmony, and controlled by exquisite sensibilities. His collaboration with Gertrude Stein resulted in two extraordinary stage works, and his keen ear, his wit and the elegance of his writing established him as one of the sharpest music critics in the USA.
RICHARD JACKSON
Thomson learned to play the piano at the age of five and began lessons with local teachers when he was 12. He studied the organ from 1909 until 1917 and again in 1919; from the beginning of this period he also worked as organist in the family church (Calvary Baptist) and other churches in Kansas City. He attended Central High School (1908–13) and a local junior college (1915–17, 1919). During the American involvement in World War I he enlisted in the army and was in a field artillery unit; he was also trained in radio telephony at Columbia University and in aviation at a pilots’ ground school in Texas. He was set for embarkation to France when the war ended.
In the autumn of 1919 he entered Harvard University, where he was decisively influenced from the start by three men: the French-trained composer Edward Burlingame Hill, with whom he studied orchestration and modern French music among other subjects; Archibald T. Davison (also French-trained), the conductor of the Harvard Glee Club, for whom he was assistant and accompanist for three years; and S. Foster Damon, a Blake scholar, poet and composer, who introduced him to the works of Satie and to Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein’s early collection of writings. Thomson began to compose at Harvard in 1920. In the summer of 1921 the Glee Club toured Europe, with Thomson occasionally conducting, and he stayed on for a year in Paris under a John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship. He chose to study the organ at the Ecole Normale with Boulanger, and he also studied counterpoint with her privately. During the year he met Jean Cocteau and Les Six and was introduced to Satie. He composed, and wrote his first published critical work: music reviews for the Boston Evening Transcript. Back in the USA he returned to Harvard and was made organist and choirmaster at King’s Chapel, Boston. He gave the first American performance of Satie’s Socrate with the Harvard Musical Club and graduated from the university in 1923. In New York, with a grant from the Juilliard Graduate School, he studied conducting with Chalmers Clifton and counterpoint with Rosario Scalero.
He returned in the autumn of 1925 to Paris, where he lived, apart from visits to the USA, until 1940. His first composition from this period was the Sonata da chiesa, a neo-classical chamber work for five instruments completed in February 1926 and consisting of a Chorale, Tango and Fugue. The conception of the piece – chic, ironic and deliberately outrageous – derived from Stravinsky’s recent works. Thomson later called it his ‘graduation piece in the dissonant style of the time’; he consulted with Boulanger for the last time while the work was in progress. He also composed four organ pieces based on American Protestant hymns (the Variations on Sunday School Tunes) and the Symphony on a Hymn Tune, his first symphony.
Thomson met Gertrude Stein in the autumn of 1926, and the two expatriates began to lay plans for an opera that would concern Spanish saints and the Spanish landscape. Meanwhile, Thomson composed settings of two texts by Stein: the song Preciosilla and Capital Capitals, an unorthodox cantata-like piece for four male voices and piano. (He had set Stein’s Susie Asado before their meeting.) Stein completed the libretto for the opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, in June 1927, and Thomson finished the piano score a year later (it was orchestrated in 1933). The original text was rambling, plotless and hermetic, with no clearcut division into scenes and acts and little indication of which character was uttering at any given moment. Stein’s saints, led by Teresa of Avila and Ignatius Loyola, are devoid of any real character; they are preoccupied with asking questions (‘How many saints are there in it?’, ‘How many acts are there in it?’), counting and repeating children’s rhymes. The text does contain religious symbolism and private references to events in the writer’s life, but these serve only as material for word games and random remarks. Thomson imposed order on the material, eventually deleting about a third of it, and fashioned a work consisting of a prologue and four acts. In the absence of a plot, Thomson’s painter friend Maurice Grosser devised a scenario, or series of tableaux and processions, for staging the work. The score consists of elements that were to be characteristic of much of Thomson’s subsequent work: simple diatonic harmony (with occasional bichordal clashes), short tunes in Protestant-hymn style, extended parlando and chant passages reminiscent of Anglican liturgy, quotations of familiar airs (e.g. God Save the King or My Country, ’tis of thee), popular dance rhythms (especially the waltz and the tango) and careful, highly polished prosody. When Four Saints received its initial performances in Hartford (fig.2), New York and Chicago (with Stein present), it was widely publicized and became something of a succès de scandale. Though it never took a permanent place in the repertory, it is the composer’s most famous work.
For a period of about seven years after the opera Thomson worked at expanding his technical facility, especially in writing for string instruments. Almost all of his works featuring strings – the Violin Sonata, the two string quartets, etc. – date from this period. He also composed the Symphony no.2 (adapted from the First Piano Sonata) and a series of ‘portraits’, the musical equivalents of Stein’s word pictures of the same name. Thomson eventually composed over 100 of these pieces, some of which he orchestrated and used as sections of larger works. None of the works of this period contains allusions to hymn-tune style or traditional material (though Thomson’s waltz strain is still prominent); they are concerned, rather, with problems of ‘pure’ music-making. Thomson returned to the nationalistic vein in earnest, however, with two film scores and a ballet in the later 1930s. For The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River, widely acclaimed documentary films directed by Pare Lorentz and sponsored by an American government agency, he used cowboy songs, traditional southern spirituals, old popular tunes and, for The River, the finale of the Symphony on a Hymn Tune. The dance score Filling Station was commissioned by Kirstein for Ballet Caravan and was called (by Balanchine) ‘the very oldest classic ballet with a specifically native American theme in the extant repertory’. It has waltzes, tangos (one reworked from the Sonata da chiesa) and suggestions of a Salvation Army band.
In October 1940 Thomson was appointed music critic of the New York Herald-Tribune. During 14 years at this post he established himself as one of the major critical writers of the era. His newspaper pieces – all stylish, bright, deliberately provocative and unshakably opinionated – furnished material for four anthologies: The Musical Scene, The Art of Judging Music, Music Right and Left, and Music Reviewed, 1940–1954. At a time when music critics tended to be wordy, make ostentatious displays of their musical knowledge and use technical jargon, Thomson was plain and concise. For example, of Porgy and Bess he wrote: ‘Its faults are numberless; but its inspiration is authentic, its expressive quotient high’. At a time, too, when critics tended to accept as given the artistic value of works in the standard repertory and to concentrate on performances, Thomson wrote about the quality of the music, usually treating performances secondarily. He clashed with other critics who venerated certain performers; he became famous for his lack of enthusiasm for Toscanini when the conductor was generally regarded as one of the greatest living musicians, and he once characterized Heifetz’s repertory as ‘silk-underwear music’.
While working as a critic, Thomson also continued to compose, most notably a second opera on a Stein text, The Mother of us all (commissioned by the Alice M. Ditson Fund), and the score for another documentary film, Louisiana Story, directed by Robert Flaherty. Stein’s libretto, begun in 1945 and completed by March 1946 (four months before her death), was less abstract than her Four Saints, though still unconventional; it again required a scenario by Maurice Grosser for staging. The theme of the piece is the women’s suffrage movement as typified by Susan B. Anthony, and it is played against a tapestry of 19th-century Americana. With its homespun hymn tunes, waltzes and marches, Thomson’s setting is similar in many respects to that of Four Saints, but he provided a richer palette and moments of greater sentiment and seriousness. The score for Louisiana Story is an adroit mixture of folk material and descriptive music cast in formal sections (Pastorale, Chorale, Fugue and Passacaglia). Thomson subsequently fashioned from it two widely performed suites: Acadian Songs and Dances and Louisiana Story. The film score itself won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for music.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s Thomson travelled widely, lecturing at universities and participating in conferences, writing articles, conducting in the USA and Europe (he conducted the first Paris performance of Four Saints in 1952), and continuing to compose. His numerous awards included appointment to the Légion d’Honneur (1947), election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1948) and to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1959), the National Book Critics Circle Award for A Virgil Thomson Reader, and a Kennedy Center Honor (1983).
During Thomson’s long career as a composer he worked with several different styles. Cage, in his study (with Kathleen Hoover) of Thomson’s music, referred to ‘the great variety and all but intangible nature of [his] work’. He often took up a style (such as that of Gregorian chant and modal polyphony in the early choral pieces with Latin texts), and then dropped it or blended it with other elements. Baptist hymns were perhaps the major preoccupation, revealed initially in the ambivalent Sunday-school pieces, in which the gentle home-grown source material is disposed in a tortuous patchwork of variations and the organ is treated like a giant calliope. In many later works, however, such as the Symphony on a Hymn Tune and the Cello Concerto, the tunes are treated with affection and humour.
Thomson also made prominent use of the popular music of the 19th century, sometimes simply quoting the melodies, sometimes creating his own new settings of them and sometimes, as in The Mayor La Guardia Waltzes, using the older genres as models for new composition. He used the waltz in numerous works, including both of his string quartets (somewhat covertly in the first, more openly in the second) and the Double Glissando from his Ten Piano Etudes. In such works as The Squeeze-Box (from the film score Louisiana Story) and the third movement of the Third Piano Sonata, he set the waltz rhythm against a melody that alternates phrases of four beats and three. The tango rhythm appears in the Sonata da chiesa and the Tango Lullaby: a Portrait of Mlle [Flavie] Alvarez de Toledo, ragtime in one of the Ten Etudes, and even the early English song Drink to me only with thine eyes in Tenor Lead (Madrigal), another of the Ten Etudes.
Open 4ths, 5ths and octaves are common in Thomson’s music, as are fanfare-like flourishes (all three operas begin with rolls on the snare drum, for instance). The harmonic language is often conventionally tonal, as in the second song of La belle en dormant, the triumphant C-major ending of The Plow that Broke the Plains, the Four Songs to Poems of Thomas Campion, and at least four of the Five Songs from William Blake. But frequently the music is better described simply as adopting a wandering, nonfunctional diatonicism that may come to rest where one expects it to or on a chord that sounds remote. There are diatonic clashes, as in the curious overlapping lines and chords of the Missa pro defunctis, and many surprises: at the end of Guitar and Mandolin, the last of the Nine Piano Etudes, the pianist is instructed to ‘reach into the piano and strike strings with flat of hand, pedal down’, and the Kyrie of the Missa pro defunctis begins and ends with a perfect, but seemingly incongruous, 12-note row.
Another kind of diatonic dissonance is also common in Thomson’s music: that which is brought about when one element (e.g. a simple and repetitive bass or accompaniment figure) is set against another (e.g. a melody), each proceeding innocently, but persistently, on its own way. Such incidents seem often intended to create a deadpan comic effect, and they invariably upset the tonal equilibrium. Two good examples among many are the Variations on Sunday School Tunes and the first song in La belle en dormant.
Thomson’s curious ‘portraits’ dabble in a variety of styles: Paul Bowles described a group of them in 1942 as giving ‘the impression of having come from nowhere [moving] airily in and out of the focus of consonance like breezes through a pagoda’. A kind of serial technique is used in A Solemn Music, which develops from a series of 12 chords, and three ‘pictures’ for orchestra (The Seine at Night, Wheat Field at Noon, Sea Piece with Birds) are painted in a nostalgic latterday Impressionism.
The greatest influence on Thomson was the music of Satie, and Satie’s ideals of clarity, simplicity, irony and humour underlie the diversity of his work. The words used by Thomson to define Satie’s aesthetic could be used to describe his own: ‘it has eschewed the impressive, the heroic, the oratorical, everything that is aimed at moving mass audiences … it has directed its communication to the individual. It has valued in consequence, quietude, precision, acuteness of auditory observation, gentleness, sincerity, and directness of statement’.
The work which comes closest to drawing together the various stylistic facets into a cohesive and congenial unity is Thomson’s third opera, Lord Byron. He and his librettist, Jack Larson, worked on the opera for seven years, and it was undoubtedly his most ambitious project. The Thomson wit and playfulness are here, as is the meticulous (if occasionally monotonous) prosody – a hallmark of his vocal writing. Yet there is a seriousness of tone, a comparative richness of texture and a lyrical expansiveness seldom encountered in his earlier works. There are the expected liturgical elements and the use of quotations (Auld Lang Syne, for instance, is worked into an impressive septet), but the style, in general, is not greatly dependent on the Baptist hymnbook. Thomson’s ‘classical’ string-writing period is represented in an important ballet sequence (deleted from the score after the opera’s première) which uses material from the String Quartet no.2. What finally sets Lord Byron apart from Thomson’s previous work, however, is its emotional content: the opera rises to moments of real passion. This suggests a new dimension for a composer who frequently demonstrated his ability to entertain but whose expressive voice was always carefully muted.
Editions: Portraits for Piano Solo: Album 1 (New York, 1948) [Pl]; Portraits for Piano Solo: Album 2 (New York, 1949) [P2]; Portraits for Piano Solo: Album 3 (New York, 1950) [P3]; Portraits for Piano Solo: Album 4(New York, 1953) [P4]; Nine Portraits for Piano Solo (New York, 1974) [P5]; Thirteen Portraits for Piano Solo (New York, 1981) [P6]; Nineteen Portraits for Piano Solo (New York, 1983) [P7]
Portraits whose full titles have the form ‘[title]: a Portrait of [subject]’ are listed below in the form ‘[title] … [subject]’.
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Four Saints in Three Acts (G. Stein), 1927–8, orchd 1933, unpubd; Hartford, CT, 8 Feb 1934, cond. Smallens; arr. with pf; Saints’ Procession arr. SATB, pf, arr. TTBB, pf, unpubd; Pigeons on the Grass Alas arr. Bar, pf, 1934, arr. Bar, orch, 1934, unpubd |
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The Mother of us all (Stein), 1947, unpubd; New York, 7 May 1947, cond. Luening; arr. with pf |
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Lord Byron (J. Larson), 1961–8, unpubd; New York, 20 April 1972, cond. G. Samuel; arr. with pf; ballet from Act 3 pubd as Sym. no.3 |
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Filling Station (L. Christensen), 1937, unpubd; New York, 18 Feb 1958, cond. E. Schenkman; arr. pf Hartford, CT, 6 Jan 1938; arr. orch suite |
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The Harvest According (De Mille), 1952, unpubd; New York, 1 Oct 1952, cond. Thomson [arr. from Sym. on a Hymn Tune, Vc Conc. and Suite from The Mother of us all] |
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Parson Weems and the Cherry Tree (E. Hawkins), 1975; Amherst, MA, 1 Nov 1975; arr. pf |
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Two Sentimental Tangos, 1923, unpubd [arr. of pf piece]; Sym. on a Hymn Tune, 1928; Sym. no. 2, 1931, rev. 1941 [arr. of Pf Sonata no.1], arr. pf 4 hands, 1932, unpubd; The Plow that Broke the Plains, suite [from film score], 1936, arr. pf; The River, suite [from film score], 1937; Filling Station, suite [from ballet], 1937, unpubd, arr. pf; Fugue and Chorale on Yankee Doodle, suite [from film score Tuesday in November], 1945 |
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The Seine at Night, 1947; Acadian Songs and Dances [from film score Louisiana Story], 1948; by Balanchine as Bayou, 1952; Louisiana Story, suite [from film score], 1948; Wheat Field at Noon, 1948; At the Beach, concert waltz, tpt, band [arr. of Le bains-bar, vn, pf], 1949; The Mother of us all, suite [from op], 1949, unpubd; A Solemn Music, band, 1949, arr. orch, 1961; Vc Conc., 1950, unpubd, arr. vc, pf Sea Piece with Birds, 1952 |
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11 Chorale Preludes [arr. Brahms: op.122], 1956; The Lively Arts Fugue, 1957, unpubd; Fugues and Cantilenas [from film score Power among Men], 1959; A Joyful Fugue, 1962, arr. band; Autumn, concertino, harp, str, perc [arr. Homage to Marya Freund and to the Harp and Pf Sonata no.2], 1964; Pilgrims and Pioneers [from film score Journey to America], 1964, arr. band; Ode to the Wonders of Nature, brass, perc, 1965; Fantasy in Homage to an Earlier England, 1966; Sym. no.3, 1972, arr. pf as Ballet from Lord Byron, unpubd [arr. of Str Qt no.2]; Thoughts for Str, 1981 |
arrangements of piano pieces where noted; unpublished unless otherwise stated
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The John Moser Waltzes, 1935, orchd 1937; Canons for Dorothy Thompson, 1942; The Mayor LaGuardia Waltzes, 1942; Bugles and Birds … Pablo Picasso, 1940, orchd 1944; Cantabile for Str … Nicolas de Chatelain, 1940, orchd 1944, pubd; Fanfare for France … Max Kahn, 1940, arr. ww 1944, pubd; Fugue … Alexander Smallens, 1940, orchd 1944; Meditation … Jere Abbott, 1935, orchd 1944; Pastorale, orig. Aaron Copland, Persistently Pastoral, 1942, orchd 1944 |
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Percussion Piece … Jessie K. Lasell, 1941, orchd 1944; Tango Lullaby … Mlle [Flavie] Alvarez de Toledo, 1940, orchd 1944, pubd; Concerto … Roger Baker, fl, harp, str, perc, 1954; arr. fl, pf; Edges … Robert Indiana, 1966, arr. band, 1969; Study Piece: Portrait of a Lady, orig. Insistences … Louise Crane, 1941; arr. band, 1969; Metropolitan Museum Fanfare: Portrait of an American Artist, orig. Parades … Florine Stettheimer, 1941, arr. brass, perc, 1969; A Love Scene, orig. Dead Pan: Mrs. Betty Freeman, 1981, orchd 1982; Intensely Two: Karen Brown Waltuck, 1981, orchd 1982; Loyal, Steady, and Persistent: Noah Creshevsky, 1981, orchd 1982; Something of a Beauty: Anne-Marie Soullière, 1981, orchd 1982; David Dubal in Flight, 1982, orchd 1982; Major Chords, orig. Tony Tommasini, 1984, orch 1984 |
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Fête polonais, TTBB, pf, 1924, unpubd [arr. Chabrier] Capital Capitals (G. Stein), 4 male vv, pf, 1927, rev. 1968; Mass, 2vv, 1934; 7 Choruses from the Medea of Euripides (trans. C. Cullen), SSAA, perc, 1934; The Bugle Song (A. Tennyson), unison children’s, vv, pf, 1941, arr. 2 vv, unpubd; Welcome to the New Year (E. Farjeon), 2vv, children pf, 1941, arr. SATB, pf, unpubd; Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (W. Whitman), SSATB, pf, 1958, arr. SATB, orch, 1961, unpubd; Missa pro defunctis (Requiem Mass), double chorus, orch, 1960, vs pubd |
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Dance in Praise (Gaudeamus igitur, trans. J. Symonds), SATB, 1962, unpubd; 5 Auvergnat Folk Songs, SATB, pf, 1962, orchd 1964; When I survey the bright celestial sphere (W. Habbingdon), unison vv, org/pf, 1964; The Nativity as Sung by the Shepherds (R. Crashaw), A, T, B, SATB, orch, 1966–7, unpubd, arr. with pf acc; Cant. on Poems of Edward Lear, S, 2 Bar, SATB, pf, 1973, rev. 1974; orchd, unpubd, The Peace Place (J. Larson), SATB, pf, 1979, rev. as Fanfare for Peace, SATB, pf, 1983, arr. with brass, unpubd; A Prayer to Venus (J. Fletcher), SATB, pf, 1981; Cantantes eamus (Virgil), TTBB, pf, 1982, arr. with brass; Southern Hymns, SATB, pf, 1984 |
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De profundis (Ps xxx), SATB, 1920, rev. 1951; O my Deir Hart, SATB, 1921, rev. 1978; Sanctus, TTBB, 1921, unpubd; Tribulationes civitatum, SATB, 1922, arr. TTBB, unpubd; 3 Antiphonal Psalms (cxxiii, cxxxiii, cxxxvi), SA/TB, 1922–4; Agnus Dei, 3 equal vv, 1924, unpubd; Missa brevis, TTBB, 1924, unpubd; Agnus Dei, TTBB, 1925, unpubd; Benedictus, TTBB, 1926, unpubd; Sanctus, TTBB, children’s vv, 1926, unpubd; My shepherd will supply my need (I. Watts, after Ps xxiii), SATB, 1937, pubd in various choral arrs., arr. lv, pf, 1959; Scenes from the Holy Infancy According to St Matthew, T, Bar, B, SATB, 1937 |
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Surrey Apple-Howler’s Song, round, children’s vv, 1941; Hymns from the Old South, SATB/SSA, 1949; Kyrie eleison, SATB, 1953, incl. in Missa pro defunctis; Never Another (M. Van Doren), SATB, 1955, pubd as Praise him who makes us happy; Song for the Stable (A.B. Hall), SATB, 1955, pubd as It seems that God bestowed somehow; How will ye have your partridge today (N. Brown), round, 4vv, 1967, unpubd; Hymn for Pratt Institute (R. Fjelde), SATB, 1968, unpubd |
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5 Songs from William Blake, Bar, orch, 1951, unpubd, arr. with pf, no.2 arr. SATB, pf, 1955, unpubd, arr. TTBB, pf, 1955; Collected Poems (K. Koch), S, Bar, orch, 1959, unpubd, arr. with pf; The Feast of Love (from Pervigilium veneris, trans. Thomson), Bar, orch, 1964, arr. with pf, unpubd; From Byron’s Don Juan, T, orch, 1967, unpubd |
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5 Phrases from The Song of Solomon, S, perc, 1926; Stabat mater (M. Jacob), S, str qt. 1931, rev. 1981, arr. S, str orch, unpubd, arr. 1v, pf, 1960; 4 Songs to Poems of Thomas Campion, Mez, cl, va, harp, 1951, arr. Mez, pf, arr. SATB, pf, 1955 |
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The Sunflower (Blake), 1920, unpubd; Vernal Equinox (A. Lowell), 1920, unpubd; 3 Sentences from The Song of Solomon, 1924, unpubd; Susie Asado (Stein), 1926; The Tiger (Blake), 1926; Preciosilla (Stein), 1927; La valse grégorienne (G. Hugnet), 1927, rev. 1971; Le berceau de Gertrude Stein, ou Le mystère de la rue de Fleurus (Hugnet), 1928; Commentaire sur St Jérome (Marquis de Sade), 1928; Les soirées bagnolaises (Hugnet), 1928, unpubd |
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3 poèmes de la Duchesse de Rohan, 1928; Portrait of F.B. [Frances Blood] (Stein), 1929; Air de Phèdre (J. Racine), 1930; Film: 2 soeurs qui ne sont pas soeurs (Stein), 1930; Oraison funèbre de Henriette-Marie de France, Reine de la Grande-Bretagne (J. Bossuet), 1930, rev. 1934, unpubd; Le singe et le léopard (J. de La Fontaine), 1930; La belle en dormant (Hugnet), 1931; Chamber Music (A. Kreymborg), 1931, unpubd; Dirge (J. Webster), 1939 |
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At the Spring (J. Fisher), 1955; The Bell doth Toll (T. Heywood), 1955; Consider, Lord (J. Donne), 1955; The Holly and the Ivy (anon. 1557), 1955, unpubd, arr. SATB, pf, 1963; If thou a reason dost desire to know (F. Kynaston), 1955, 1958; John Peel (J.W. Graves), 1955; Look, how the floor of heav’n (W. Shakespeare), 1955; Remember Adam’s Fall (15th cent.), 1955; [5] Shakespeare Songs, 1956–7 |
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3 estampas de Niñez (R. Rivas), 1957; Mostly about Love ([4] Songs for Alice Estey) (K. Koch), 1959; Mass, 1v/unison vv, pf, 1960, orchd 1962, unpubd; [5] Praises and Prayers, 1963, no.2 arr. SATB/SSA, pf, 1963; 2 by Marianne Moore, 1963; From Sneden’s Landing Variations (F. O’Hara), 1972, unpubd; The Courtship of the Yongly Bongly Bo (E. Lear), 1973–4 [from Cant. on Poems of Edward Lear]; What is it? (T. Campion), 1v, pf/gui, 1979; The Cat (Larson), S, Bar, pf, 1980 |
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Go to Sleep, Alexander Smallens jr, 1935, unpubd; Go to Sleep, Pare McTaggett Lorentz, 1937, unpubd; Go to Sleep, Gabriel Liebowitz, 1979, unpubd |
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Portraits for Violin Alone, 1928–1940: 1 Señorita Juanita de Medina accompanied by her Mother, 2 Madame Marthe-Marthine, 3 Georges Hugnet, Poet and Man of Letters, 4 Miss Gertrude Stein as a Young Girl, 5 Cliquet-Pleyel in F, 6 Mrs. C.W.L. [Chester Whitin Lasell], 7 Sauguet, from Life, 8 Ruth Smallens |
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Five Portraits for Four Clarinets, 2 cl, a cl, b cl, 1929: 1 Portrait of Ladies: a Conversation, 2 Portrait of a Young Man in Good Health: Maurice Grosser with a Cold, 3 Christian Bérard, Prisoner, 4 Christian Bérard as a Soldier, 5 Christian Bérard in Person |
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Portraits for Violin and Piano, 1930–40: 1 Alice Toklas, 2 Mary Reynolds, 3 Anne Miracle, 4 Yvonne de Casa Fuerte; pubd with Cynthia Kemper, a Fanfare, 1983, as Five Ladies |
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Barcarolle for Woodwinds (A Portrait of Georges Hugnet), fl, ob, eng hn, cl, b cl, bn, 1944 [arr. of pf piece, 1940] |
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Etude for Cello and Piano … Frederic James, 1966, unpubd |
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Family Portrait, 2 tpt, hn, 2 trbn, 1974: 1 A Fanfare: Robin Smith, 2 At 14: Annie Barnard, 3 A Portrait of Howard Rea, 4 Scherzo: Priscilla Rea, 5 Man of Iron, Willy Eisenhart [no.5 arr. pf piece, 1972] |
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Lili Hasings, vn, pf, 1983, unpubd |
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A Portrait of Two [Joelle Amar, Benjamin Zifkin], 1984, unpubd |
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Jay Rosen: Portrait and Fugue, b tuba, pf, 1984–5, unpubd |
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Sonata da chiesa, cl, tpt, hn, trbn, va, 1926, rev. 1973; Le bains-bar, vn, pf, 1929, unpubd, arr. 2 vn, vc, db, pf, unpubd, arr. tpt, pf as At the Beach, 1949, arr. tpt, band; Vn Sonata, 1930; Serenade, fl, vn, 1931; Str Qt no.1, 1931, rev. 1957; Str Qt no.2, 1932, rev. 1957, orchd as Sym. no.3; Sonata, fl, 1943; Sonorous and Exquisite Corpses, c1945, collab. Cowell, Cage, Harrison, arr. R. Hughes as Party Pieces, 4 wind, pf, 1963 |
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Lamentations, etude, acc, 1959; Variations, koto, 1961, unpubd; For Lou Harrison and his Jolly Games 16 Measures (count ’em), theme without instrumentation, 1981, unpubd; A Short Fanfare, 2/3 tpt, 2 drums ad lib, 1981, unpubd; Bell Piece, 2/4 players, 1983; Stockton Fanfare, 3 tpt, 2 drums, 1985 |
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1929: Travelling in Spain … Alice Woodfin Branlière, P6; Alternations … Maurice Grosser, P1; Catalan Waltz … Ramón Senabre, P2 |
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1930: Madame Dubost chez elle, P5; Pastoral … Jean Ozenne, P3; Russell Hitchcock Reading, P5; Clair Leonard’s Profile, P6 |
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1935: Meditation … Jere Abbott, P2; Sea Coast … Constance Askew, P2; A Portrait of R. Kirk Askew jr., P2; The Hunt … A. Everett Austin, jr, P4; Helen Austin at Home and Abroad, P5; Souvenir … Paul Bowles, P3; Connecticut Waltzes … Harold Lewis Cook, P6; Hymn … Josiah Marvel, P4; Tennis … Henry McBride, P4; The John Moser Waltzes; Prelude and Fugue … Miss Agnes Rindge, P3; An Old Song … Carrie Stettheimer, P1; Ettie Stettheimer, P5; A Day Dream … Herbert Whiting |
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1938: Maurice Bavoux: Young and Alone, P6; Portrait of Claude Biais, unpubd; A French Boy of Ten: Louis Lange, P5 |
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1940: Tango Lullaby … Mlle [Flavie] Alvarez de Toledo, P1; With Tpt and Hn … Louise Ardant, incl. in 9 Etudes; Poltergeist … Hans Arp, P4; Stretching … Jamie Campbell, P6; Cantabile … Nicolas de Chatelain, P3; Duet … Clarita, Comtesse de Forceville, P6; In a Bird Cage … Lise Deharme, P2; Pf Sonata no.4: Guggenheim jeune [Peggy Guggenheim]; Barcarolle … Georges Hugnet, P1; Aria … Germaine Hugnet, P2; Invention: Theodate Johnson Busy and Resting, P6; Fanfare for France … Max Kahn, P2; 5-finger Exercise … Léon Kochnitzky, P2; Awake or Asleep … Pierre Mabille, P5; The Bard … Sherry Mangan, P3; Canons with Cadenza … André Ostier, P3; Bugles and Birds … Pablo Picasso, P1; Dora Maar or the Presence of Pablo Picasso, P6; Lullaby which is also a Spinning Song … Howard Putzel, P4; The Dream World of Peter Rose-Pulham, P3; Fugue … Alexander Smallens, P1; Swiss Waltz … Sophie Tauber-Arp, P4; Eccentric Dance … Madame Kristians Tonny; Pastoral … Tristan Tzara, P5; Toccata … Mary Widney, P3 |
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1941: Insistences … Louise Crane, P4; With Fife and Drums … Mina Curtiss, P1; Perc Piece … Jessie K. Lasell, unpubd; Parades … Florine Stettheimer, P6 |
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1942: James Patrick Cannon, Professional Revolutionary, P6; Aaron Copland, Persistently Pastoral, P6; Scottish Memories: Peter Monro Jack, P6; Prisoner of the Mind: Schuyler Watts, P5; Wedding Music … Jean [Mrs. Schuyler] Watts, P4 |
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1943: 5-Finger Exercise … Briggs Buchanan, in 10 Etudes |
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1945: Solitude … Lou Harrison, P1 |
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1951: Chromatic Double Harmonies … Sylvia Marlowe, in 9 Etudes |
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1956: Homage to Marya Freund and to the Harp, P6 |
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1958: A Study in Stacked-Up Thirds, rev. 1969 as For Eugene Ormandy’s Birthday, 18 Nov 1969, P5 |
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1966: Edges … Robert Indiana |
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1972: Man of Iron … Willy Eisenhart |
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1981, all in P7: Franco Assetto: Drawing V.T.; Gerald Busby: Giving Full Attention; Sam Byers: with Joy; Christopher Cox: Singing a Song; Noah Creshevsky: Loyal, Steady, and Persistent; Barbara Epstein: Untiring; Norma Flender: Waltzing; Richard Flender: Solid not Stolid; Dead Pan: Mrs. Betty Freeman; Morris Golde: Showing Delight; Buffie Johnson: Drawing V.T. in Charcoal; Bill Katz: Wide Awake; Round and Round: Dominique Nabokov; Craig Rutenberg: Swinging; Anne-Marie Soullière: Something of a Beauty; Karen Brown Waltuck: Intensely Two; Scott Wheeler: Free-Wheeling; John Wright: Drawing |
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1982, unpubd unless otherwise stated: Dennis Russell Davies: in a Hammock; Molly Davies: Terminations; David Dubal: in Flight; Doña Flor: Receiving; Rodney Lister: Music for a Merry-go-round; Dr. Marcel Roche: Making a Decision; Paul Sanfaçon: on the Ice, P7 |
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1983, unpubd: Mark Beard: Never Alone; Powers Boothe: with Pencil; Charles Fussell: in Meditation; Glynn Boothe Harte: Reaching; Bennett Lerner: Senza espressione; Peter McWilliams: Firmly Spontaneous; Malitte Marta: in the Executive Style; Phillip Ramey: Thinking Hard; Louis Rispoli: in a Boat; Vassilis Voglin: on the March |
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1984, unpubd: Brendan Lemon; John Houseman: No Changes, rev. 1985 and orchd as A Double Take; Lines: for and about Ron Henggeler; Boris Baranovic: Whirling; Tony Tommasini: a Study in Chords |
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1985, unpubd: Christopher Beach Alone; Danyal Lawson: Playing; Jane Bowles Early and as Remembered; Philip Claflin: dans le temps très noceur; Robin Holloway |
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Prelude, 1921; 2 [orig. 3] Sentimental Tangos, 1923, unpubd; Synthetic Waltzes, 2 pf/pf 4 hands, 1925; 5 2-part Inventions, 1926; 10 Easy Pieces and a Coda, 1926; Sonata no.1, 1929; Sonata no.2, 1929; Sonata no.3, 1930; 10 Etudes, 1943–4; 9 Etudes, 1940–51; For a Happy Occasion (Happy Birthday for Mrs. Zimbalist), 1951 |
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Fanfare, 1922; Passacaglia, 1922, rev. 1974; Pastorale on a Christmas Plainsong, 1922; Prelude, 1922; 5 Chorale Preludes, 1924; Variations on Sunday School Tunes, 1926–7; Church Organ Wedding Music, 1940, rev. 1978; Pange lingua, 1962; Theme for an Improvisation by McNeil Robinson, 1981, unpubd; Organ Voluntaries 1, 2 and 3: a Suite, 1985 |
all unpublished
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The Plow that Broke the Plains (dir. P. Lorentz), 1936; The River (dir. Lorentz), 1937; The Spanish Earth (dir. Ivens), montage of Sp. folk music, 1937, collab. Blitzstein; Tuesday in November (dir. J. Houseman), 1945, incl. Fugue and Chorale on Yankee Doodle, Pastorale and Walking Song; Walking Song arr. pf, 1951, unpubd; Louisiana Story (dir. R. Flaherty), 1948; The Goddess (dir. P. Chayevsky), 1957; Power Among Men (dir. Dickinson, J.C. Sheers), 1958; New York, 5 March 1959; Journey to America (dir. Houseman), 1964 |
unpublished unless otherwise stated
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Le droit de Varech (G. Hugnet), 1930; A Bride for the Unicorn (D. Johnston), 1934; Hamlet (W. Shakespeare), 1936; Horse Eats Hat (E. Labiche, trans. E. Denby), 1936 [music by P. Bowles, orchd Thomson]; Injunction Granted, a Living Newspaper, 1936; Macbeth (Shakespeare), 1936; Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare), 1937; Androcles and the Lion (G.B. Shaw), 1938 [not orchd by Thomson]; The Trojan Women (Euripides), 1940; The Life of a Careful Man (CBS Workshop), 1941; Oidipous Tyrannos (Sophocles), 1941 |
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The Grass Harp (T. Capote), 1952; King Lear (Shakespeare), 1952; Ondine (J. Giraudoux), 1954, pubd; King John (Shakespeare), 1956; Measure for Measure (Shakespeare), 1956, Take, O take those lips away, pubd; The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare), 1957, Tell me where is fancy bred, pubd; Much Ado about Nothing (Shakespeare), 1957, Pardon, goddess of the night and Sigh, no more, ladies, pubd; Othello (Shakespeare), 1957; Bertha (Koch), 1959 |
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MSS in US-NH |
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Recorded interviews in US-NHoh |
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Principal publishers: Boosey & Hawkes, Belwin-Mills, C. Fisher, Peters, Presser, G. Schirmer, Southern |
†
selected writings from the ‘New York Herald-Tribune’
The State of Music (New York, 1939/R, 2/1961)
‘Looking Forward’, MQ, xxxi (1945), 157–62; repr. in MQ, lxxv (1991), 108–13
†The Musical Scene (New York, 1945/R)
†The Art of Judging Music (New York,1948/R)
†Music Right and Left (New York, 1951/R)
Virgil Thomson (New York, 1966/R)
†Music Reviewed, 1940–1954 (New York, 1967)
American Music since 1910 (New York, 1971)
A Virgil Thomson Reader (New York, 1981)
Foreword to R. Jackson: Democratic Souvenirs: an Historical Anthology of 19th Century American Music (New York, 1988)
GroveA (R. Jackson) [incl. further bibliography]
A. Copland: ‘Our Younger Generation: Ten Years Later’, MM, xiii/4 (1935–6), 3–11
P. Glanville-Hicks: ‘Virgil Thomson’, MQ, xxxv (1949), 209–25
K. Hoover and J. Cage: Virgil Thomson: his Life and Music (New York, 1959)
R. Jackson: The Operas of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson (diss., Tulane U., 1962)
H.C. Schonberg: ‘Virgil Thomson: Parisian from Missouri’, HiFi/Stereo Review, xiv/5 (1965), 43–56
‘Thomson, Virgil (Garnett)’, CBY 1966
‘A Tribute to Virgil Thomson on his 81st Birthday’, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, v/2 (1977), 405–531
K.M. Ward: An Analysis of the Relationship between Text and Musical Shape and an Investigation of the Relationship between Text and Surface Rhythmic Detail in ‘Four Saints in Three Acts’ by Virgil Thomson (diss., U. of Texas, Austin,1978)
H. Gleason and W. Becker: ‘Virgil Thomson’,20th-Century American Composers, Music Literature Outlines, ser. iv (Bloomington, IN, rev. 2/1981), 170 [incl. further bibliography]
H.W. Hitchcock: ‘Homage to Virgil Thomson at Eighty-Five’, ISAM Newsletter, xi/1 (1981), 1–2
M. Meckna: The Rise of the American Composer-Critic: Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, Virgil Thomson, and Elliott Carter in the Periodical Modern Music, 1924–1946 (diss., U. of California, Santa Barbara, 1984)
L. Kerner: ‘Simple is not Easy’, Village Voice (16 Dec 1986)
M. Meckna: Virgil Thomson: a Bio-Bibliography (New York, 1986)
L. Raver: ‘Virgil Thomson, A.G.O. Composer of the Year 1986: the Solo Organ Music’,American Organist xx/4 (1986), 115, 117, 119
A.C. Tommasini: Virgil Thomson’s Musical Portraits (New York, 1986)
T. and V.W. Page: Selected Letters of Virgil Thomson (New York, 1988)
H.W. Hitchcock: ‘A Portrait by Virgil Thomson: a Report by the Sitter’, ISAM Newsletter, xxv/2 (1996), 6
A. Porter: ‘Virgil Thomson: “A Composer of Operas”’, Opera, xlvii (1996), 757–62
J.C. Tibbetts: ‘Virgil Thomson: Closing Thoughts’, American Record Guide, lix/6 (1996), 39–42 [1982 interview]
P. Wittke: Virgil Thomson (New York, 1996)